Last week, my business travel for ABF Freight took me to the city of Buffalo, NY. Two relatively short flights (Norfolk to Philadelphia, Philly to Buffalo) got me to Buffalo just after noon time on Sunday, so I had some time to check out some Buffalo area baseball experiences before checking into my hotel. I had a short list of Western NY baseball must-sees and near the top of my list was the home stadium of the Buffalo Bisons, Sahlen Field.

The Buffalo Bisons are the AAA affiliate of the nearby Toronto Blue Jays. Nearby meaning Buffalo is just under 2 hours south of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In fact, Sahlen Field is located just about 10 minutes south of the Peace Bridge, which crosses over the Niagara River from the United States into Canada. Which makes this field and this trip to Buffalo one of the more unique baseball journeys of my baseball writing experiential career. As the week progressed, I found that baseball and baseball history have a huge presence in the Western New York area I was staying in. More about that later in the week. For now, let’s get back to my Sahlen Field experience.

Reading up on the Bisons schedule, I noticed that they were on the road on Sunday, playing at Lehigh Valley (PA), so most likely the stadium would be locked and inaccessible. Still, I took the drive and the gamble that I could find an attendant or a gift shop attached to the field or someone working at the stadium to let me in to take pictures of the interior of the stadium. When I arrived at Sahlen Field early Sunday afternoon, I quickly discovered that I may have been the only person not only at Sahlen, but in the entire downtown area surrounding the stadium. No worries, this is not the first time I walked the perimeter of a closed baseball field. And it won’t be the last.

Luckily, there was a path around the stadium, on the sidewalk, that took me to an elevated grassy area behind the scoreboard area. I climbed the hill and took in the stadium from this elevated spot. I surveyed the areas around the field to see if there were other cool places to photograph from but most looked closed on a Sunday. I mentioned the Peace Bridge earlier and guess what else is close to Sahlen Field – Niagara Falls. Very cool!

From the elevated spot, I walked around the back of the stadium and over near the employee parking lot, before exiting via an alleyway out to the Washington Street area in front of the stadium. I was hoping to find a baseball or an attendant back in the parking lot, but struck out again. Rain was starting to fall, so I took a few more photos before returning to my rental car and heading out of the City of Buffalo for my hotel in nearby Amherst, NY.

Despite not being open, meaning the inside of the stadium, I was still pretty psyched to visit Sahlen Field, home of the Buffalo Bisons. The field is situated at the corner of Swan and Washington Streets in Downtown Buffalo, right next to some classic architecture. Including one historical landmark, the Old Post Office, now property of SUNY-Erie, just amazing to see such an impressive building like that next to a ballfield. The rain shortened my trip around the stadium, a bit, but I was still about to walk the perimeter, find out about Buffalo’s physical location in relation to Canada and Niagara Falls, and check out the stadium from a cool, elevated view. It was the first of many unique and interesting baseball experiences I would have in Western New York last week.